An NJ Grinder's Journey as a Pro
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Redsoxnets5
4
2yr ago2024 Week 25
I played 6461 hands from 6/17-6/23 which was to be expected. After a solid 3 days of grinding Monday-Wednesday I woke up at 4am Thursday with Amy, took an Uber to Newark, and hopped on a 6:30 flight to Florida. Amy's brother-in-law very kindly invited us to spend some time at a home his family owns near Jupiter, Florida, so Amy and I joined he and Amy's sister there for the weekend. It was absolutely beautiful and I forgot how much I love spending time at the beach. The water was incredibly warm and felt amazing, the house was lovely, and I got to spend a lot of quality time with people I consider family at this point. We wanted to fly back Sunday but pretty much all flights got cancelled so we stayed another day to come home Monday night. I didn't take many pics but this one was from Blue Pointe Bar and Grill, overlooking the Indian River. The ocean is on the other side of those trees in the distance.
As far as poker goes, I got my 5 hours of play and a couple hours of study in each of the 3 days I was home. I was worried about getting out of rhythm due to being away. After a couple days in Florida I was so glad I went. It felt great getting in the ocean again and getting exercise that didn't remind me my legs are achy. I'm never in any real agony when it comes to running but there's always a little reminder that I'm getting older each day. When I was in the ocean I felt exactly like I did when I was a kid and it was rejuvenating. As Sunday rolled around I started to think about poker again and it didn't make me anxious at all. I'd had my time off and I was excited to get back to work. After the flight got cancelled I realized I could take one more day to enjoy myself and then the grind would begin again on Tuesday. This upcoming week will be shortened once again as I have to leave early on Friday to go to my friend's bachelor party. I feel differently about this upcoming trip now that I experienced the Florida trip. It'll be a lot of fun to celebrate my friend who's getting married next month and I'll be fully in the moment all weekend. But I'm not worried at all about struggling to get back into rhythm once the trip is over.
Weekly Results
Meditation 7, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 8.75, Played 15.25, Coached 0, Total 24
I write this 7-7-0 line down each week and it's easy to take it for granted, but there are times where I forget to meditate or I haven't hit 5k steps by nighttime and I have to squeeze it in. I'm proud of how I've made this such a consistent part of my daily life for nearly 6 months now. It's great that I can book a win every day by simply making sure I hit these daily goals....
Redsoxnets5
3
2yr ago2024 Week 20
Another week of getting in the volume and learning more about what the cash game grind looks like. It's been fun putting my full attention and effort into cash without tournaments to distract me. After 10,390 hands this week (5/13-5/19) I'm at 28k hands in 19 days, just a few thousand hands off my highest volume month ever. That record will go down early into week 21 as I continue to play my 10k+ hands per week, completely focused on putting in the volume and improving at the game.
I started playing 5/10 again this week. While I was backed for MTTs, I'd played all the stakes offered online in NJ (up to 25/50), with most of my volume coming at 2/5. 5/10 and 10/20 felt comfortable to me, and I'd shot take 25/50 when the game looked good and I felt good. I was much more willing to aggressively hunt games when I was backed for tournaments since a huge score could always be around the corner; losing a bunch in cash would hurt me less financially given I had a free way of potentially securing a big bink at all times. Now that bankroll management is much more of a concern for me, I wanted to slowly ease into the bigger games to avoid getting discouraged. The original plan was to only play 1/2 and 2/5 all of May, but they'd gone well enough and I felt comfortable enough the first 2 weeks that I decided to fast track it a bit and start to get in good 5/10 games this week. I have milestones in my head that I want to hit before moving up again, but knowing me I might see a good 10/20 and say screw it, so I'll hold off on rigidly defining any of those targets for now.
The literal second hand of 5/10 I was dealt this month I 3b squeezed JJ with a fish in between then got it in on 7665, only to get stacked by a reg's AA who'd flatted the 3b. If anything I was almost happy that happened because I got to see how little it affected me emotionally. I've already played these stakes and swung much bigger in the past; the fact that MTTs weren't backed anymore wasn't going to magically make me prone to being more emotional during swings. If anything it might be the opposite; knowing the swings of MTTs are not something I'll have to contend with if I don't want to puts me more at ease when I lose at cash because I have the confidence that it'll swing back to the positives MUCH more quickly than tournaments ever did.
I'm noticing that stretches of hands that would take days to play out in the past now take just a few hours. Getting 2000 hands in from 10am-6pm sees me swinging 5-6 buy ins each way a couple times a day. Before being on my own I'd play way less volume and sit with the results longer, feeling good about winning or bad about losing, which was silly given how small the samples were that I was focused on. I think I've got a much healthier balance going now. I realize simultaneously that one big hand won't define my session, but it's important to stay focused every hand and not get sloppy and lose a buy in when it's not necessary.
I think my brain is built for this and I'm really excited about continuing to put the work in.
Weekly Results
Meditation 6, Walk 7, Soda 0
Studied 13.5, Played 23, Coached 0, Total 36.5
I finally missed a day of meditation! First one since the end of January. On Friday night I went to a friend's house about an hour away and had a great time catching up. The five of us were up til like 4am and by the time I got back to my place the next day (around 2pm) I was exhausted. Amy and I watched shows til about 7pm at which point I felt sick and had to sleep. I woke up at like 6am the next day and realized I hadn't gotten the meditation in! No worries, just time to start a new streak.
Putting the 10k hands in will naturally get me near 40 hours per week but again, that isn't a strict goal anymore. As time goes on I may decide to start doing some work after 7pm but for now I've been reserving that as time off. Getting 10k+ hands and nearly 40 hours in each week without using any of those primetime hours is pretty impressive imo. Maybe in the future I'll put some later hours in but I'd really like to keep some sort of a schedule down as far as not going to bed super late goes; it's definitely way healthier for me. So potentially a session during the day then a session 9pm-12am or something could be an option later on. For now I think I'll stick to the schedule I've been on for the entirety of May....
